The journal Nature has published a set of contrasting new
papers that attempt to shed light on the controversy about how to
interpret the surprise results of a major 2017 study that was attempting
to genetically engineer human embryos in the lab to correct a genetic
mutation associated with heart disease.

Experimental use of CRISPR-Cas9, the popular new genetic engineering tool,
unintentionally generated significant damage to the genome of two kinds of
mouse cells and one kind of human cell — including large deletions and
complex rearrangements of genetic material — in research recently reported
by the Wellcome Sanger Institute. Given these findings, researchers using
CRISPR-Cas9 technology to engineer human gene therapies should very
carefully analyze their results to rule out such serious unintended
effects before providing such new therapies to patients, concluded the
study’s authors. Wellcome Sanger is a major British research institution.
Its findings were published in Nature Biotechnology.

Five European researchers have strongly warned in the prestigious journal
Science that the U.S. military’s new “Insect Allies” research
program could — intentionally or not — enable and inspire unprecedented
new biological weapons. Just the existing publicity about this effort —
directed by the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) —
could be destabilizing, the five authors indicate.

Insect Allies has mostly been presented by DARPA as an effort to develop
technologies to protect important food crops in the field, given some
agricultural emergency, such as drought, frost, disease, or insect
infestation. But news of the U.S. program and the core technologies DARPA
is trying to develop “may have already” stimulated other nations to try to
develop similar technologies, and that is concerning given their “obvious”
potential hostile use in biological warfare, the authors add. The
researchers, in their October 5, 2018 commentary, conclude with the unusual
observation that the U.S. Congress could defund the program as a way to
stop it in its tracks.

Insect Allies involves efforts to genetically engineer insects that feed
on important food crops, such as maize, so that the insects could transmit
protective, genetically engineered viruses to crops already growing in the
field during a particular season. Those viruses would themselves be
designed to deliver new genetic material into the crops, so as to
genetically alter them in ways that would enhance how they respond to a
particular stressor in the environment, such as drought or disease. The
intent is not to change the seeds or germline of the plant, but to limit
the change in genetic expression to that particular season’s crop.

The critique also notes that the intentional or accidental misapplication
of Insect Allies technologies could threaten critical food crops that
hundreds of millions of people rely on for sustenance. Read the
Science commentary
here,
and coverage in The Scientist about it
here.

When the popular new genetic-engineering method called CRISPR-Cas9 is used
to genetically modify certain types of human cells in the lab, the cells
most likely to survive the process and carry the intended modification are
also ones which may be more susceptible to becoming cancerous later, two
separate new studies suggest.

An experiment using the popular new genetic-engineering method called
CRISPR/Cas9 to manipulate Arabidopsis plants generated an
unexpectedly high rate of off-target mutations, the researchers involved
have reported. Moreover, the evidence of off-target mutations was higher
in the second generation of plants grown from genetically engineered seeds
than it was in the first generation.

When researchers modified genes in poplar trees in order to create
semi-dwarf growth characteristics, they hypothesized that the semi-dwarf
trees would be able to convert more carbon to the production of chemical
defenses against pests, since they would use less of it to generate
overall biomass. This should increase their resistance to the pests.
However, instead of observing the expected increase in resistance factors,
they found decreases in some of the experimental lines.

By crossing a popular rice variety in India with GMO rice that the company
Syngenta had engineered to express provitamin A, researchers have
succeeded in developing new lines of the Indian rice with high levels of
provitamin A. But unintended effects of the genetic manipulations ― a much
lower yield of grain, and plants that grew much less robustly ― caused the
new lines to be unfit for commercial cultivation, a recent study
concludes.

More than 3.6-million acres of soybeans planted in the U.S. in 2017
suffered some degree of damage due to the unintended drift of the
herbicide dicamba from other fields where farmers sprayed it on new
soybean and cotton varieties that were genetically engineered to be able
to tolerate it, the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has reported.
That represents about four percent
of all the acres planted in soybeans
in the U.S. this year. Reports of damage to soybean crops this year from
vapor or particle drift of dicamba were received by state agricultural
agencies in about 25 states. The off-field movement of this unusually
volatile herbicide also reportedly damaged tomato, watermelon, cantaloupe,
pumpkin, vegetable, and tobacco crops, as well as vineyards, and
residential gardens, trees, and shrubs according to the EPA. New
dicamba-tolerant GMOs were developed by Monsanto in response to
increasing problems with weed resistance to glyphosate, the active
ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup, which earlier generations of GMOs were
engineered to be able to tolerate. Monsanto, BASF, and Dupont all sell
dicamba products intended to be used with the new GMOs.

EPA, in its November report, noted that it had tightened its regulatory
restrictions on when, how, and by whom the herbicide can be applied. The
federal agency will monitor how well the changes work “to help inform our
decision whether to allow the continued use of dicamba on tolerant soybean
and cotton beyond the 2018 growing season.” The EPA report was based on
national data
collected by Kevin Bradley, a professor in the University of Missouri’s
Division of Plant Sciences. Bradley, in an
August online update
on the issue, stated: “In my opinion, we have never seen anything like
this before; this is not like the introduction of Roundup Ready or any
other new trait or technology in our agricultural history.” This is the
second year that farmers have reported significant crop damage from
drifting dicamba. In Arkansas last year, conflict over such crop damage
led to
one farmer being charged with murder
for allegedly shooting and killing another farmer. News reports have
quoted some farmers as saying they feel they have no choice but to switch
to the new dicamba-tolerant GMO seed to avoid a repeat of the damage.

A new review of data on 23 GMO crops that were engineered to include genes
that encode for proteins from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis
(Bt) concludes that the properties of the engineered Bt proteins in GMOs
differ in important ways from naturally occurring Bt proteins. The
proteins are toxic to a range of insects, so are used for their
insecticidal effects. But the significant differences between the
engineered forms of the Bt toxic proteins and their natural form, the
study concludes, challenge the historical assumption that Bt GMOs are as
safe for the environment and for non-target species as regulators have
long considered pesticide sprays incorporating the natural form of these
Bt toxins to be. Risk assessments, instead of testing GM crops directly,
often mainly extrapolate from data on naturally occurring Bt proteins and
on “surrogates” – Bt proteins purified from bacterial strains that have
been engineered to express them. But the Bt proteins in GM plants also
differ significantly from those in the surrogate versions, the review
found. The study includes recommendations for revising government
regulatory processes, in line with its conclusion that Bt insecticidal
proteins in GM crops “deserve much greater attention and may be of equal
or greater concern than conventional pesticides.”

You can
download the study,
which was published in September, 2017, in the
peer-reviewed journal Biotechnology & Genetic Engineering Reviews.
You can also read commentary about it in
Independent Science News, written by Jonathan Latham, editor of that
non-profit news site and also a study co-author.

A set of controversial experiments that involved creating and genetically
engineering more than a hundred human embryos in vitro for research
purposes has sparked disagreement among prominent researchers about what
the results actually show. Authors of the research claimed success, albeit
through an unintended effect of their manipulations. But a group of
critics say the data is insufficient to reach such a “stunning” conclusion
– especially when other troubling possibilities are more likely.

European government researchers, after a “quite challenging” process of
molecular analysis, have finally been able to fully identify and
characterize the genetically engineered bacteria detected in 2014 in a
shipment to Germany of a Vitamin B-2 supplement for animals. In a new
study in the journal Food Chemistry, the researchers describe the
advanced methods and in-depth literature review they followed to be able
to fully characterize the particular GE strain of Bacillus subtilis
found in the Vitamin B-2 shipment. Their analysis showed, for example,
that this GE strain had had genetic material associated with resistance to
several antibiotics inserted into it. Under European Union regulations,
food additives for humans and animals can be produced with fermentation
processes that involve GE microorganisms. But no trace of genetic material
from those or any other GE microorganisms are supposed to be in the final
products. That’s why this shipment from a company in China had been
flagged by German authorities. The particular GE strain found here is one
that manufacturers do sometimes use in the production of riboflavin, but
the Chinese company reported having used a different one, the researchers
said. The contrast between the information the company provided and the
results of their own analysis “strongly imply that the production strain
must have been contaminated or switched before or during production,” they
add. The researchers also conclude that better analytic tools are needed
for the routine detection and characterization of other GMOs.

Download the study, which was published online in March 2017 in the
peer-reviewed, open-access journal Food Chemistry,
here. Read a news analysis about the study, from Independent Science
News, here.

CRISPR-Cas9, a major new technique for trying to precisely design and
insert changes in the genomes of organisms, apparently caused more than a
thousand unintended mutations in a small new study involving mice.
The study, in turn, has sparked a controversy — fueled by the huge
financial and academic interest in CRISPR technologies — about whether its
evidence is strong enough to support the authors’ conclusion.

The West African nation of Burkina Faso, once a showcase for small farms
growing genetically modified (GM) cotton cultivars, has been phasing out
GM cotton because its qualities have been inferior to those of the prized
local, non-GM cultivars the engineered cotton had replaced, according to a
peer-reviewed study in the journal African Affairs. Fallout from
the situation there has already interfered with the adoption of GM cotton
in Ghana, according to a recent news report, and may slow its adoption in
other West African countries as well.

Over the next five to ten years, a profusion of new genetically engineered
products is likely to emerge, including an increasing number featuring
such complex interactions and novel traits that U.S. regulatory agencies
may be overwhelmed, in terms of trying to provide timely product review
and to protect human health and the larger environment from unintended
effects. So suggests a major recent report by a committee of the
prestigious U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and
Medicine.

The March 2017 report, “Preparing for Future Products of Biotechnology,”
concludes that the federal agencies that either fund research on
biotechnology or that regulate biotechnology products should increase
their spending and their focus on advancing the science that regulators
need to be able to adequately conduct ecological and other risk analyses
before new kinds of such products are approved for release.

Researchers have detected unintended differences in protein expression and
in the expression of important plant hormones between genetically modified
(GM) maize and non-GM maize, and the pattern of differences varied for
normal versus drought conditions. They cite their results in calling for
detailed molecular analyses to be added to risk analyses of genetically
engineered plants. Risk analyses, they added, should also include studies
to identify and compare the particular molecular responses of GM and
non-GM varieties to environmental stressors, such as drought. Such studies
should also profile the way plants engineered to tolerate an herbicide
respond at the molecular level when they are actually exposed to the
herbicide under stressed versus normal conditions.

An interesting new paper entitled “The Semiosis of ‘Side Effects’ in
Genetic Interventions” was published by a University of Edinburgh scholar
in October 2016 in the peer-reviewed journal, Biosemiotics. The
author points out that genetic engineers tend to discount the likelihood
and importance of unintended effects of their work, or else assume they
can manage them. Critics of genetic engineering, on the other hand, often
warn that unintended and unpredictable “side effects” from modifying an
organism’s genome in the lab could be disruptive. He goes on to say that
on both sides of the discussion it is easy to forget that effects not
intended by engineers may, at least in part, be “intended” by the organism
as it reorganizes itself to accommodate or make use of the new conditions
imposed upon it. In other words, we humans are not the only “generators
of meaning” at work when we try to genetically manipulate organisms. (As
an editorial aside: we might, in fact, reasonably think that this largely
accounts for the frequent unexpected results.) And acknowledging that
organisms actively respond to novelties has important implications for
human relations with other species. Our current naïve understanding of the
nature and consequences of genetic interventions suggests the need for
both humility and caution.

As soybean farmers in the U.S. between 1998 to 2011 planted ever more land
in seeds genetically modified to resist glyphosate (the active ingredient
in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide), their total use of herbicides rose,
consistent with growing weed resistance to glyphosate, according to a
major new study. In fact, their use of pesticides was higher by 28 percent
per hectare of land, averaged over that entire period, than for farmers
growing non-GMO soybeans.

The goal of new gene-drive technology – to rapidly “drive” engineered
genetic sequences into as much of the population of a species as possible
– “makes it especially important to minimize the potential for unintended
consequences,” and too little is now known about how to do that to support
open environmental releases of gene-drive modified organisms, concludes a
major new review of the technology.

It observes that researchers are developing the technology at a
“breathtaking” pace and adds: “The considerable gaps in knowledge about
potential off-target (within the organism) and non-target (in other
species or the environment) effects necessitate a collaborative,
multidisciplinary approach to research, ecological risk assessment,
development of public policy, and decision making for each proposed
application of a gene drive technology.” The report, Gene Drives on the
Horizon: Advancing Science, Navigating Uncertainty, and Aligning Research
with Public Values, was produced by a committee of the prestigious U.S.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A major new review of the research on genetically engineered crops
concludes that there is no significant evidence that genetic engineering
technology by itself has increased the rate of yields for the three most
frequently planted genetically engineered crops in the U.S. – maize,
soybeans, and cotton. Such yields have been increasing, but it’s not
possible to determine how much the increases could be due to GE
technology, versus other factors, despite the authors’ effort to tease out
such a positive effect. The report, “Genetically Engineered Crops:
Experiences and Prospects,” was produced by a committee of the prestigious
U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The committee called for research to “isolate effects of the diverse
environmental and genetic factors that contribute to yield.” It also
concluded that despite similar national committees having called since
2000 for U.S. data to be collected to make it possible to trace the impact
of GE crops on biodiversity and other measures of environmental
sustainability, such databases remain “inadequate.” That limits “the
ability to assess effects on abundance of monarchs [monarch butterflies]
and many other species.” The report also examines a wide range of other
questions about the effects and the future of genetically engineered
crops, including pesticide resistance.

New research attempting to attack the HIV virus with the advanced new
genetic engineering techniques of synthetic biology — often referred to in
general as “gene editing” — indicates that such genetic manipulation can
backfire. The engineered break in viral DNA can itself lead to mutations
that help the virus replicate and continue to infect host immune cells.
Immune cells in one recent study had been engineered to find and disable
the HIV virus by making particular cuts in the viral DNA. Usually that
leads to mutations that inactivate the viral gene that was cut. But for
some of the mutations resulting from such cuts, that did not happen.
Moreover, the engineered immune cells were no longer able to
recognize these mutated versions of the virus as the target they had been
engineered to disable. So the viral replication continued.

Read a news story in the journal Nature about related research studies
here.
Download the latest paper discussed in the article, from the journal
Cell Reports,
here.

A new report by the Testbiotech Institute for Independent Impact
Assessment in Biotechnology in Germany summarizes the key advanced new
methods for genetically engineering plants and animals used in food
production that are referred to as “synthetic biology”, and describes the
companies that are now actively patenting animals or plants that have been
subjected to such methods. The risks and uncertainties associated with
these methods, the report cautions, require a stricter adherence to the
precautionary principle than has been the practice so far. The report
cites studies indicating that these “gene-editing” methods, while often
described as being far more precisely directed than older methods of
genetic manipulation, “can lead to a wide range of off-target effects.” It
also discusses plans by some companies “to perform multiple genetic
manipulations in the animals, which also would render multiple side
effects and risks to animals, humans, and the environment.” The report
recommends that governments not allow the patenting of synthetically
engineered animals and plants used in agriculture and food production, and
that such plants and animals be subject to European Union regulations for
genetically modified organisms. It also calls for an international ban on
genetically engineered organisms that “cannot be controlled in their
spatio-temporal dimension.”
Download the report here.

Farmers in India who rely on rain, not irrigation, can earn similar net
revenues whether they grow a traditional Asiatic cotton species or
Bt cotton, the now far more common variety of an American species
that has been genetically engineered to resist certain pests, a new study
suggests. Yields in the study were higher for farmers growing Bt
cotton. But expenses were lower and the sales price was higher for those
growing the traditional non-GMO cotton. The researchers, from the
University of Oxford, were not able to compare the economic returns when
each species was grown under irrigation because they could not identify a
group of farmers planting the traditional species who irrigated their
fields. In fact, 40 per cent of farmers in the study who did irrigate told
researchers that planting the Asiatic species wasn’t an option for them
because of the low availability of that seed. However, most farmers in
Maharashtra, the Indian state where the study took place, do not irrigate
their fields. And researchers found that whether farmers planting
Bt cotton relied on rain or irrigation, there was no significant
difference in their net revenues. The study focused on farmers with less
than 12 acres of land.
Read more.

Annual suicide rates for farmers in areas of India where cotton fields are
fed by rain, not irrigation, are directly correlated with increases in the
adoption of genetically engineered insecticidal Bt cotton,
according to an unusually holistic new analysis by researchers in the U.S.
and Italy.
Read more.

The Bioscience Resource Project has released a draft report, written in
2010 but only now available, that summarizes research indicating diverse
unintended effects of RNA interference (RNAi) techniques used to
genetically manipulate plants. The authors conclude that “RNAi in
agriculture raises a spectrum of important biosafety issues.” The report
explores three mechanisms whereby RNAi could lead to toxicological and
environmental hazards: potential unintended effects on the plant organism
being intentionally modified, on invertebrate species that feed on such
plants, and on mammals that feed on the modified crops. The possibility of
the last raises especially urgent questions about how dietary exposure to
transgenic plants engineered with RNAi would affect mammalian cellular
functions, the authors state, but little research had been done on this
issue at the time of their research. The report was written by Jonathan R.
Latham and Allison K. Wilson, the scientists who co-founded the Bioscience
Resource Project, which conducts and provides resources for public-interest
science.
Download the report here.

In a controversial experiment using so-called gene editing techniques,
scientists in China manipulated abnormal human embryos that would have
been discarded and were donated from fertility clinics. The aim was to
insert a genetic construct to create a break in a key hemoglobin gene and
then repair that break. The creation of the break succeeded in 28 of the
54 embryos tested, but only in four had the gene been repaired in the
intended fashion. The intended alterations occurred in only some of the
cells of the embryos, some embryos had repaired the gene without using the
introduced construct, and there were unintended mutations in other
genes...
Read more.

A recent study concludes that there have been at least 396 incidents
worldwide of GMOs contaminating food, animal feed, seed, or non-food
crops. These include the contamination of non-GMO crops and fish, the
contamination of wild or weedy relatives of GMO crops outside the areas
where those crops were planted, and the contamination of food or feed
supplies resulting from experiments with genetically modified pigs. The
data cover the years 1997 – the year after large-scale commercial planting
of GMO crops began – through 2013. The incidents involved a total of 63
countries, with half of the incidents being reported by 11 countries.

However, the authors of the peer-reviewed study, published by the
International Journal of Food Contamination, indicate that the
reports only establish a minimum for the number of incidents, since “there
is no systematic global monitoring or recording of GM contamination
incidents.” The study is also limited to incidents involving officially
unauthorized contamination – not cases where no regulations were breached.
The analysis in the study is based on an
online register, maintained
by one of the authors, that was begun by two non-profit groups that oppose
the environmental release of GM crops and that were concerned about the
lack of an official global dataset.

A recent analysis exploring that question by two organizations in India
concludes the answer is no. In fact, this 2014 report by The Alliance for
Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture, in collaboration with JATAN: A Mission
for Organic Farming, cites both scientific and regulatory reasons why the
commercial promotion of genetically modified crops threatens the further
spread of organic agriculture in India. As an example of the challenge of
co-existence, it points to a decline in India’s production and export of
organic cotton, which it relates to the lack of availability of non-GMO
cotton seeds and the negative effects on the market from incidents of
organic cotton in India being contaminated with cotton that had been
genetically modified to produce the Bt insecticide.
Read more.

A review of studies comparing the yield of herbicide-resistant crops and
their non-resistant isogenic counterparts shows that there are often few
differences in yield and, if there are differences, then the
herbicide-resistant varieties tend to yield less.
Read more.

Researchers in Canada bred hybrids between genetically modified (GM)
Atlantic salmon and its close relative, brown trout. The GM salmon contain
a foreign growth hormone gene that enhances growth. Some of the hybrids
carried and expressed the transgene. Along with enhanced growth, the
hybrids had unintended effects in conditions that mimic natural stream
conditions. The researchers write that their findings “suggest that
complex competitive interactions associated with transgenesis and
hybridization could have substantial ecological consequences for wild
Atlantic salmon.”
Read more.

A Russian nonprofit organization recently announced that it will carry out
a $25 million study to examine the health effects on rats fed genetically
modified (GM) herbicide-resistant maize (corn) and the herbicide
glyphosate, with which it is sprayed. The study will follow a “protocol
whose scale, rigour and range of measurements will meet and exceed current
international standards for testing the toxicity of GM foods, pesticides,
and other chemicals,” the organization states.
Read more.

A new form of genetic engineering is being developed in which genetically
modified plants make a special kind of RNA that, when taken up by insect
pests, can induce harmful effects through silencing genes in the insect.
Two USDA scientists have written a review article discussing the manifold
potential unintended effects of this technology, especially in connection
with harming nontarget insects.
Read more.

Adverse Impacts of Transgenic Crops/Food is a compilation of over
400 abstracts from scientific articles that discuss adverse effects of
genetically modified crops and food. It is
available online.
The report was produced by the Coalition for a GM-free India. The
abstracts are ordered in different categories and subcategories:

Imprecision and unpredictability of genetic engineering as a technology

Synthetic Biology is an effort to change and improve living
beings — microorganisms, plants, animals, and eventually human
beings — following engineering principles. The strategy is to take machines
and devices as the model for organisms and to modify organisms
accordingly. Synthetic biologists aim to make their discipline less
haphazard than conventional genetic engineering and to elicit more
controlled changes in organisms. This article by Craig Holdrege provides
an introduction to the topic of synthetic biology and places it into the
context of contemporary findings about the non-mechanistic nature of life.
He questions the wisdom of an approach that manipulates life based on an
inadequate understanding of life itself.
Read more.

A long-term study claiming to show toxic effects on rats of the herbicide
Roundup and genetically modified (GM) Roundup-tolerant maize (corn) was
originally published in 2012. It elicited significant controversy. The
journal retracted the article but the authors stood by their findings. In
2014, this study was republished.
Read more.

Chinese scientists from the National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic
Improvement at the Huazhong Agricultural University in China have reviewed
the performance of different crops that have been genetically modified to
produce an insecticidal protein (“Bt” crops). The authors are
clearly proponents of genetic engineering, but their review shows how
context-dependent and unpredictable the performance of Bt crops is.
Read more.

Genetically modified (GM) crops sometimes have higher yields than their
non-GM counterparts and sometimes similar or lower yields. Here Chinese
researchers report on significant differences in yields in two different
insect-resistant Bt rice varieties and their non-GM counterpart.
Read more.

There is a major concern that if genetically modified crops pollinate
closely related weeds, the crop/weed hybrids will survive and spread in
the larger environment. Researchers in China have found that
insect-resistant rice/weedy rice hybrids, under conditions of normal pest
pressure, show (as intended) less insect damage, but, unexpectedly,
produce more seeds than both nontransgenic rice and weedy rice controls.
Read more.

The GMO Deception: What You Need to Know about the Food, Corporations,
and Government Agencies Putting Our Families and Our Environment at
Risk. This new book, edited by Sheldon Krimsky of Tufts University
and Jeremy Gruber of the Council for Responsible Genetics, provides a
major new resource for individuals and organizations interested in broadly
exploring the implications of the commercial rush to genetically
manipulate food. The book’s scope includes impacts on the quality,
safety, and fair distribution of food; the welfare of farmers; the humane
treatment of animals, and sustainable agriculture.
Read more.

The paradigmatic idea behind genetic modification is that genes control
the formation of an organism’s characteristics, so that by introducing new
genes you can alter the organism and it takes on new characteristics. In
the 1980s, when genetic modification of organisms was beginning, there
were great hopes that GM bacteria—“superbugs”—could be used to break down
an array of pollutants in the environment. Many such GM bacteria have been
developed in the laboratory, but with few exceptions, the real world
applications have not materialized. Why not?
Read more.

A recent report funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation highlights
the need for a major, coordinated new effort to research the ecological
impacts of organisms developed through the extreme form of genetic
engineering known as synthetic biology.
Read more.

Researchers investigated whether introducing a gene from soybeans related
to the formation of ferritin (a protein that stores and makes iron
available) into corn (maize) would in any way alter the formation of other
substances in corn. They discovered significant unexpected changes.
Read more.

The question of whether genetically modified (GM) crops and food are safe
is highly contested. How the research is carried out, what researchers
find, and how they interpret their results are influenced by a variety of
interests. As a result, each experiment and each assessment has a
larger-than-science context that is important to recognize, especially
when dealing with the controversial field of research that evaluates GM
crop safety.
Read more.

The Ministry of Health in Córdoba province, Argentina, released a
report, based on data gathered over a five-year period, that found the
highest death rates from cancer in areas where genetically modified crops
are grown and agro-chemicals are used.
Read more.

In a thorough review article, scientists describe the increase in the
number of insect species that are becoming resistant to genetically
modified, insecticide-producing Bt crops designed to kill those
insects. Over a billion agricultural acres have been planted with Bt
crops, mainly corn and cotton, since 1996. Ecologists knew that at some
point the insects would evolve resistance and no longer be killed by these
insecticidal plants. Now it’s happening.
Read more.

Researchers in Sweden found that genetically modified Bt aspens
producing an insecticide, were — as expected — by and large better
protected against damage by certain insects than unmodified aspens. This
protection did not mean, however, that the trees were more productive,
which is the overall goal of such genetic manipulation. Also, and
unexpectedly, the Bt trees were not protected against one target
pest species.
Read more.

In a field experiment, leaf litter from aspen trees that were genetically
modified to produce a toxin to kill insects and leaf litter from
unmodified trees were exposed to aquatic insects. Surprisingly, the
researchers found an increase in the abundance of aquatic insects in the
genetically modified leaf litter.
Read more.

Aspen trees that were genetically modified to produce a toxin to kill
insects had a different composition of leaf chemicals and the leaves —
when old — were more likely to be eaten by slugs than were leaves of
non-GM trees.
Read more.

While wheat plants usually self-fertilize, they do occasionally
cross-pollinate with other wheat plants (“outcrossing”). Researchers in
Europe found that GM fungal resistant wheat plants were more likely to
outcross with other wheat plants than were non-GM plants of the same
variety. The unexpected higher rate of outcrossing by the GM lines
increases concern about the likelihood of GM wheat hybridizing with non-GM
wheat should the seed supply be contaminated with even small amounts of GM
seed.
Read more.

While there have been no epidemiological studies assessing whether it is
safe for human beings to eat genetically modified (GM) foods, there have
been many studies with animals. Some show negative side effects, others
don’t. Despite this fact, one often hears that there is scientific
consensus that GM food is safe for human consumption. The European Network
of Scientists for Social and Environmental Responsibility (ENSSER)
published a statement that takes issue with this claim and cites many
studies that indicate how little consensus there is within the scientific
community about the potential effects of GM food on human health.
Read the statement.

An article with this title appeared in the journal Food Chemistry.
The researchers investigated soybean batches from three different
categories of soybeans: genetically modified (GM) soybeans that are
resistant to the herbicide glyphosate; conventional, non-GM soybeans; and
organically grown soybeans. They found differences in the nutritional
composition profiles. Also, and perhaps most strikingly, the GM soybeans,
in contrast to the two other types, contained high residues of glyphosate
and its breakdown product AMPA.
Read more.

Farmers in Iowa have reported since 2009 that the western corn rootworm, a
significant corn pest, has been severely injuring Bt corn.
Bt corn has been genetically modified to prevent this insect and
other insects from feeding on the crop. But this “solution” to eradicating
pests is showing its Achilles heel.
Read more.

An article by scientists Jonathan Latham and Allison Wilson describes the
discovery by the European Food Safety Authority that a key regulatory
sequence in the DNA of many commercial genetically modified crops contains
a “significant fragment of a viral gene”. They state: “This finding has
serious ramifications for crop biotechnology and its regulation, but
possibly even greater ones for consumers and farmers. This is because
there are clear indications that this viral gene (called Gene VI) might
not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal
functioning of crops, including their natural pests”.

A survey during 2013 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the
United Nations revealed a growing problem: countries that import food and
feed have been increasingly finding shipments contaminated with small
amounts of genetically modified (GM) crops and feed.

Monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico and overwinter there. In recent
years their numbers have dropped significantly. One of the reasons, which
you can read about in this article, is the widespread spraying of the
herbicide glyphosate on genetically modified crops in the Midwestern U.S.
This poison kills milkweeds, the main food plant of Monarch butterfly
larvae.

Use of the herbicide glyphosate has risen dramatically since the advent of
genetically modified crops in 1996. Now many weeds have become resistant
to the herbicide and don't die when sprayed. As one expert has remarked,
“U.S. farmers are heading for a crisis.”

Cross-breeding of glyphosate-resistant rice with a weedy subspecies of
cultivated rice — something that easily occurs naturally — produces
offspring that are more fecund than either the commercial species or the
weedy subspecies. So farmers growing glyphosate-resistant rice “may
unwittingly be helping weedy rice to spread rather than eradicating it”.

Having engineered cows to produce milk without β-lactoglobulin (suspected of
being an allergen affecting lactose-intolerant persons), researchers
discovered large shifts in the relative amounts of other proteins. They also
found themselves looking at cows without tails.

Genes to produce an insect-control agent have been altered and engineered
directly into crops and approved for general use. But now the inevitable is
happening: the destructive pests are becoming resistant.

One of the major applications of transgenic crops in agriculture are the
so-called Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner (Bt) plants, in particular
Bt maizes, which produce insecticidal Cry proteins that target specific
orders, such as the Lepidoptera or Coleoptera. We reviewed publications that
reported on the direct toxic effects of Bt-maize and/or Cry proteins of
current Bt-maize events on larvae of non-target butterflies and moths
(Lepidoptera). In total, 20 peer-reviewed publications were identified, of
which 16 papers contributed laboratory-based data and seven field-based data.
An adverse effect on caterpillars was recorded in 52% of all laboratory-based
and in 21% of all field-based observations